Career Day

Yesterday was career fair for grades 2-5. Second grade is housed downstairs and had a separate career fair in the cafeteria. While grades 3-5 were on a rotation schedule upstairs. We are a very large Elementary school. The lower grades had already had their own vehicle career day in the fall.

Mid week we weren't sure if we would have someone for each homeroom. I tried reaching out to my family but the ones who work weren't available to come. I wanted to do something to help our wonderful guidance counselor who had taken on the task of planning this event for us. I found a great website www.drkit.org that has over 300 videos about careers. Each video is about 10 minutes long so it fit perfectly with our rotation schedule.

Fortunately we were able to secure most of the speakers that we needed although the website was a great backup plan. Third grade was truly blessed with some amazing speakers. Each speaker visits a homeroom and the students move from room to room to hear them speak. My homeroom started with...

Richland County Sheriff's Department's own Deputy Lawrence, who you may recognize from Live PD! (It was district wide Collage and Career Readiness Day so the teachers were all sporting our College clothes). Deputy Lawrence spoke about the importance of communication on his job and treating all people with respect. My student's were completely in awe (and a little disappointed that they weren't going to be on TV).  

From our room we moved on to see a ranger from our State Parks who brought his friend Pete the snake. My kids were amazed and a little terrified when I did this...

I wanted to look scared in the picture but I couldn't keep a straight face because a few of my kiddos seemed convinced they were about to watch the life get squeezed from my body. I told them he only wanted to give me a hug 😀I'm pretty sure I reached a whole new level of respect. Oh and my colleagues are now convinced that I'm insane.

The other guest speakers were amazing too and included a veteran, a local football coach, a florist, a UPS truck driver and a librarian who deals with very old books (several that we saw pictures of were over 800 years old). I LOVED that the selection included jobs that required a variety of educational backgrounds. As much as I would like to think that everyone of my students will have the opportunity to go to collage I know that just isn't realistic. It's also not necessary for everyone to receive a 4 year degree to have a job they enjoy. 

What does your career day look like? What's the craziest thing you've done with your students? While my co-workers may think this is crazy I thought it was FUN! I hope you all can have as much fun in your classroom as I do in mine!

JoAnne